Ruling On Hong Kong Election Brings The City Closer To A Mass Occupation

China's legislature on Sunday ruled out allowing open nominations
in the inaugural election for Hong Kong's leader, saying they
would create a "chaotic society." Democracy activists in the
Asian financial hub responded by saying that a long-threatened
mass occupation of the heart of the city "will definitely
happen."

In setting tight limits on how far electoral reforms can go in
Hong Kong, Beijing issued its firmest reminder yet that it's
still in charge despite the substantial autonomy it promised the
city after taking control from Britain in 1997.

The guidelines laid down by China's communist leaders ratchet up
the potential for a showdown pitting Beijing against Hong Kong
democracy supporters, a group that represents a broad swath of
society, including students, religious leaders and financial
workers.

The decision by the legislature's powerful Standing Committee
sharpens fears that China wants to screen candidates for loyalty
to the central government and is reneging on its promise to let
Hong Kong's leader be directly elected by voters, rather than the
current committee of mostly pro-Beijing tycoons.

"At this very moment, the path of dialogue has been exhausted,"
said Benny Tai, a leader of the Occupy Central with Love and
Peace protest movement, which has vowed to rally at least 10,000
people to paralyze Hong Kong's financial district — known as
Central — to press demands for genuine democracy.

The group will launch "wave after wave of protest action" in the
coming weeks "until we get to a point when we launch the all-out
Occupy Central action," Tai told reporters. University students
are also planning to boycott classes next month.

Thousands of people gathered in a park across from Hong Kong
government headquarters Sunday evening to protest the widely
expected announcement, chanting slogans and waving their
cellphones.

Earlier in the day, Li Fei, deputy secretary general of the
National People's Congress' Standing Committee, told a news
conference in Beijing that openly nominating candidates would
create a "chaotic society."

Under the legislature's guidelines, a maximum of three
candidates, each approved by more than half of a 1,200-member
nominating committee, will be put forth to Hong Kong's 5 million
eligible voters in 2017. The public will have no say in choosing
candidates, raising fears of what some have termed "fake
democracy."

"These rights come from laws, they don't come from the sky," Li
said. "Many Hong Kong people have wasted a lot of time discussing
things that are not appropriate and aren't discussing things that
are appropriate."

Making clear that Chinese leaders intend to tightly control
politics in Hong Kong, Li emphasized that candidates for the
city's chief executive should be loyal to China's ruling
Communist Party.

"He has to be responsible to Hong Kong and to the central
government," Li said. "If Hong Kong's chief executive doesn't
love the country and love the party, then that can't work in one
country."

Under the principle of "one country, two systems," Hong Kong is
granted a high degree of control over its own affairs and civil
liberties unseen on the mainland.

Occupy Central said the plan to block the Central financial
district was "the last resort, an action to be taken only if all
chances of dialogue have been exhausted and there is no other
choice." It said that "the occupation of Central will definitely
happen," without specifying a date.

Hong Kong's government still needs to hold more consultations on
Beijing's guidelines and then formulate a bill that has to be
passed by a two-thirds majority in the city's legislature. Occupy
Central urged legislators, who hold just over a third of seats,
to vote against it and "start the constitutional reform process
all over again."

But the city's current leader, Leung Chun-ying, warned that if
the proposal is blocked, it would fall to the nomination
committee to pick a leader, and the city "would be deprived of
the voting right that they would otherwise be entitled."

"The decision on the nomination committee is very hypocritical,"
said Christine Chu, who joined the pro-democracy rally Sunday
night. "This is not true universal suffrage, so we cannot accept
this result. We will do whatever we can to fight for what we
want."

Willy Lam, an expert on Chinese politics at the Chinese
University of Hong Kong, said that the requirement that a
candidate is supported by more than half of the nomination
committee will rule out candidates from the "pan-democratic"
parties.

"Only if it's lowered to 20 percent can a pan-democratic
candidate get in," as there could be enough political diversity
in the committee to back a more democratically minded person, Lam
said.

Beijing's announcement comes after a summer of protests and
counter-protests that have gripped Hong Kong, including a rally
two weeks ago by pro-Beijing activists to denounce Occupy Central
as threatening the city's stability.

Political tensions spiked in June when Chinese officials released
a policy "white paper" declaring that Hong Kong's "high degree of
autonomy ... comes solely from the authorization by the central
leadership."Many read the policy paper as asserting Beijing's
dominance of Hong Kong's affairs and hit the streets and the
Internet in protest. Occupy Central drew Beijing's rebuke by
organizing an online referendum to bolster support for full
democracy that received nearly 800,000 votes.

Also Sunday, the incumbent leader of the nearby
Chinese-controlled casino capital of Macau, Fernando Chui, was
elected to a second five-year term by a Beijing-friendly
committee even though 95 percent of 8,688 votes cast in a similar
referendum were in favor of universal suffrage in 2019.